TD Training Entry #6: Rocky Horror Bike Show!

Rocky Hill Ranch

It was a good plan. An exciting and well laid plan. It had been hatched five weeks ago, and I had been counting down the seconds until it became reality. Rocky Hill Ranch. Two days, 200 miles. Me and Paul were to ride 100 miles each day, then join our women at the campfire at dusk, chuggin’ beers and cracking wise before retiring to our tents until dawn, with Memorial Day to serve as a mercy day, if needed. It was to be our first meaty Tour Divide training trip…our first true test away from the flatlands of Houston, TX, where we could challenge ourselves in regards to distance, rugged terrain, and vicious climbing. But, as I have learned from reading many previous GDR and TD riders blogs, your most well-laid plans mean nothing to uncaring, worldly machinations that seek to bedevil your every move!

Yes, the forces of darkness were allied against us, my friends! In the week leading up to our trip, illness beset both Paul and I, and we wondered if we’d each recover in time to go. During this time, I spent days bumbling around with a bad cold, trying to replace my bike’s wheels in a sort of ignorant, Three Stooges fashion. If you’ve been reading my page, you know that I am a relative noobie in many ways, including bike repair. First I bought a single wheel to replace the one I tacoed last weekend. But it was the wrong kind for my disc brakes. So I went back and exchanged it for a set of wheels, and later realized that they only work with presta valves, and my schraders wouldn’t fit. Went back and bought presta tubes and adapters, finally got my front wheel replaced, and then realized that the back wheel needs special tools to remove the cassette. After some online research at bicycletutor.com (awesome site) I had to go to three different bike stores before I found a chainwhip and a spline lock ring tool to do the job. When I finally got the damn rear wheel replaced, it was already Friday….I almost didn’t get it done in time. Again, thanks to bicycletutor.com for enlightening me.

Fighting off illness and ignorance, I pulled out my camping gear for inspection. Since my wife was going, I had to bring the luxury gear…the huge Taj Mahal tent, the blow up mattress, the giant camp chairs…gotta make the Chief of Staff happy. But the tent and the mattress had been sitting in the garage for who knows how long, and they were molded over. Shit! How could I have been so careless, and why did I wait until the day before to check this gear!?

Then Paul texted me….he was throwing in the towel. His illness was too great, he would not make the trip to Rocky Hill. That sapped my motivation pretty good. Throw in an increasingly dreary weather forecast for Smithville, a demanding work schedule which threatened to cut into my weekend, and a slew of family members pressuring us to attend Memorial Day gatherings, and we had a trip in jeopardy.

And so on Friday night, I was sitting on my couch with a cold and a painfully sore throat, while my wife sat patiently on the couch awaiting my decision. We shouldn’t go, I thought. As maddening as it is to accept, the sensible thing is to postpone, and hope that the stars align for us next time.

Well I freakin’ went anyway.

Nothing about competing in the Tour Divide makes a lot of sense. I mean, I’m spending thousands of my own hard earned dollars to experience a suffering like no man should ever know for 30 straight days with nothing but a big “I did it!” as my prize. What in the hell about that makes sense? Not a damn thing, by my reckonin.’ So why would I worry about sensibility now, right?

That was rationale enough for me. Rocky Hill Ranch, here I come!

Rocky Hill Ranch saloon at dusk. There would be no burgers for me.

I moved departure time from Friday night to early the next morning so I could borrow my brother’s camping gear and make some last minute preparations, and by 10:00 AM Saturday morning, we were pulling into the ranch gates.

I’d never been to a mountain biking ranch, and wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I can tell you now I will be going a whole lot more, even after I race the Tour Divide. One of the main reasons I chose Rocky Hill, besides only being a couple hours away, was that they had a restaurant and showers right there on the premises. Hey, if you’re going to feed me and clean me, I’m there.

So my wife Amy and I pulled up to the unmanned check-in gate, deposited our fees, and drove up and around to the campgrounds. There were several other riders with their cars parked in the campgrounds, but only one other group of actual campers. We pitched a hasty camp, and I put on my backpack which was loaded with 20 pounds to help simulate the extra weight I’ll be carrying on the TD. I made a few adjustments on the bikes, sprayed my throat a hundred times with the most disgusting sore throat spray known to man, and we hit the trails!

The first trail we attacked was the legendary “Fat Chuck’s Demise,” whose rating of “difficult” seemed like quite an understatement to me! This is basically a wide, heavily rock-strewn road of massive climbs broken by a couple exhilarating downhills. It was my first true climbing test, and I felt great about conquering it. I did have to walk the last part of one of the climbs, but only because the rocks were so slippery and loose that my tires could find no purchase. As I walked my 26 inch wheels up the remainder of the that slope, I wondered if being on a 29er would have helped to overcome such fickle terrain.

Me re-enacting my walk up the slippery slope!

Timeout to give loving props to my beautiful wife Amy. She had been planning on lounging at camp with Paul’s girlfriend while he and I rode this beastly ranch. When they canceled, she chose to ride with me rather than be bored at camp by herself. Although she is not nearly as trained up as me, she gave it everything she had and never quit, even though she felt, at times, that she was going to pass out from exhaustion. She is a real trooper and a great supporter of what I’m trying to do. The truth is you better have a wife like that if you have any chance of racing the Tour Divide!

So then we attempted another “difficult” climbing trail, Ike’s Peak, but it was in ill repair and a quick glance at its rutt-ravaged slope told me it was unridable. So then we just started hitting trails with no regard to the map. They had names like “Drop Zone,” “Longhorn Loop,” and “Coyote Run.” They were all lots of fun, except for the fact that we were often dodging cow patties on the trail, and sometimes we had no choice but to ride right through them. That was kind of “shitty.”

Quick note about my training…I wrote a post a few weeks back about adapting my gym workouts to maximize my performance in the saddle. I was really looking forward to seeing how well (or not) my workouts would translate to my very first long climbing experience. I am very happy to say that said gym training helped my performance tremendously. My leg strength and endurance were never a problem during any of these long, rocky climbs, and I know for certain that this is a direct result of the hard work I’ve been putting in with the weights and the spin cycle. Without having done those things, I’d have had problems. Again, I know there’s a huge battle among cyclists about the benefits of weight training, and I’m not necessarily saying the same workout would benefit a seasoned rider, but for a noob…I’m convinced that supplemental weight training is vital. I’ve experienced it.

So anyway, after a few hours, we rode back to camp, where my beautiful and absolutely exhausted wife called it quits for the day. I scarfed down some grub, lubed up my throat with more rancid sore throat spray, and was just about to gear up for another several hours of solo riding when the thunderstorm hit.

“Noooo!” I screamed at the heavens, and as we raced to the safety of my truck cab, I continued to let the skies know, in no uncertain terms, how displeased I was with their decision to rain on my training ride. I had not even put in 20 miles yet. Maybe it will pass sooner rather than later, I thought. The forecast had called for a chance of scattered thunderstorms, so maybe this was just a quick pocket that would move on soon.

No such luck. An hour later, as it continued to come down, my glimmering hopes of salvaging this trip were fading. The other campers had already lit out.
I stubbornly stayed put, and when the rain finally stopped, I mounted up and resumed riding, even though I saw the continuation of the storm on the horizon. Gotta train in the mud too, I thought. But no one else was riding the ranch, and I was trashing the trails. I felt bad about it and returned to camp after only a few miles of sludgey riding.

Thinking that maybe we’d wait it out for the day and try to ride tomorrow, I came back to camp where my wife promptly told me that my brother’s tent, which I’d borrowed since mine was mold-covered, had leaked like crazy and wetted all of our bedding. And that sealed it…we had to leave.

So we packed up and rode out, and I was quite pissed about how it all turned out. But having made it there at all was pretty much a miracle in itself under the circumstances, and we certainly had a few hours of great riding. I’d planned on a lot more pictures and maybe even some video, but oh well.

If you’re a Texan or if you’re planning a visit here, I recommend checking out Rocky Hill Ranch. I talked to the owner, R.B. Phelps, before I came up, and he actually offered to show me around the ranch when I got there. Real nice fella. I’m kinda sore that I didn’t get to eat at the saloon, because I hear they have great burgers there.

Anyway I am already thirsting for my next outing, which hopefully will be Huntsville State Park on June 6th. Wanna go? Always looking for riding partners!

More pics!

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